


Change

by Punk_Kenobi



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Based on an existing idea, Gen, It's four-thirty AM, Short films that make a person cry, This Is STUPID, Why do I kill off my favorite characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 06:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Punk_Kenobi/pseuds/Punk_Kenobi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even when infected, a father will have all the time in the world for his daughter. And in the next world, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Change

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, what can I say about this. I saw the short film [Cargo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gryenlQKTbE) and I thought to myself, "Douglas would do this with his daughter because he's a good dad." 
> 
> It's pretty much that simple. Not original at all but I tend to write things like this when I'm bored. Feel free to disregard this entirely, actually.
> 
> Also, the ages of the four of them are: Douglas(36), Carolyn(51), Arthur(18), and Martin(20). I figured Douglas' daughter is about twelve in the canon time period, so I basically just skipped this sort of back in time. Also, they're probably in the British countryside somewhere, I wouldn't know where, since it's wise to get out of populated areas.

There was a loud ringing in his ears and whiteness blinded him as he woke.

A loud ringing...and a hoarse growl.

Suddenly, his memory returned, conveniently as his now ex-wife began clawing frantically at him, hunger clear even in those clouded eyes. That hunger, he'd seen it many times before by now, even though he was still trying to process that his wife was now no longer human nor cadaver, but a horrid mix of the two.

He had to leave. He had to take Hannah with him.

Scrambling out of the car, he took a moment before reaching into the backseat, too painfully aware of how his ex was now trying to contort herself....itself to reach for them. Unbuckling Hannah from her car seat, he picked up the bawling child and tried to comfort her. She had no idea what was going on. She likely wouldn't, unless these monsters stuck around for another few years. She needed to be somewhere safe so she could grow and wait out this hell in relative peace. 

Finding a pacifier he found in his pocket, he put it in her mouth when her cries had quieted just enough, he couldn't risk her drawing more of them around. Looking at his arm, the color left in his face drained.

Three hours. Three hours until he joined his wife in an undead stupor.

Finding a permanent marker out of the trunk, he jotted down notes on a map, safe zones and places infested, and stopping to write a message on Hannah's belly just in case. He couldn't take chances, he wanted her to be in the arms of someone alive and willing to take care of her. Hannah was playing with little things, and even the map when he wasn't writing on it. Smiling a little, despite everything going downhill so quickly, he poked her belly to hear her giggle.

He didn't know if he'd hear that sound again.

\--------

Running through brush and forested land and avoiding the monsters that walk through the trees was an arduous task when hauling a child on one's back, especially while carrying a fairly hefty bag of entrails on the side. He knew exactly why he was carrying them and how he'd use them. He had to stop for a moment, though, just a moment, even though he could tell an hour and a half had passed. He wasn't going to get Hannah to safety by exhausting himself and getting the virus into his bloodstream faster.

Finding a long-abandoned house, he quickly stopped to rest, and finding balloons and some helium, he quickly inflated one for Hannah, who was simply curious and looked at it with that childlike awe babies have. He smiled yet again, even though he could feel himself getting weaker with each passing second. Hannah was his world now and vice versa. And he himself, her world, was fading fast. 

He had to get her to a new caretaker. He didn't want Hannah going the way he was or worse, being left to crawl around aimlessly like a moving meal. He shuddered at the thought and hiked the backpack up higher on his back.

Continuing along, he used his walking stick more and more, leaning and leaning on it until he fell over, his breathing labored, and he knew this was it. In between his shouts and occasional swears of blinding pain he whispered loving things to the whimpering child on his back, confused about why her father had fallen, until he simply couldn't anymore, his vision fading fast into a gray blur. With the last few minutes he had, while wracked with pain, he secured the only way he wouldn't hurt his daughter onto himself. Even if he wouldn't be living much longer, he still couldn't live with himself if he hurt Hannah and turned her into one of these monsters. Monsters like him.

His three hours were up. He hungered.

\--------

_"I got him, Skip!"_

_The group went out into the field, more or less as a damage control team of their slightly larger group of rag-tags from less lucky survivor groups. The field was more like an impromptu graveyard, mounds of semi-fresh dirt everywhere. They hadn't seen one of the undead in a day or two, but they were no less vigilant. They were told to burn the corpses, but the leader preferred to simply make sure the undead weren't undead but "just plain dead" and then bury them. "More proper that way," she said._

_Examining the corpse, Martin confirmed the man...monster....man was really dead. He would have moved if a live human were this close. Checking him over for any useful supplies, he found none. Walking stick, must have come a long way, Martin knew the signs of a recently-changed one when he saw them. Couldn't have been an undead for more than an hour. There wasn't any going back after being infected, though, so it wouldn't have helped the man to have made it here alive.They would have had to kill him anyway._

_Arthur and his mum were already gesturing for him to follow, Arthur eagerly so. The kid, since he was still a kid, really, hadn't fared well, simply insisting while Martin walked after them that someone was going to solve this and all the undead would be gone "like magic," he'd said with a glint of naive denial in his eyes. Martin sympathized with Carolyn, who simply rolled her eyes and started digging. Even for a smaller woman in her early fifties, she was still very strong, aided by Arthur with his somewhat brawny nature._

_That's when Martin heard a small cry._

_Running back to the cadaver, despite Carolyn calling him a birk for doing so, he found an infant wriggling on the grass, whimpering and crying. Arthur crept closer, curious, Carolyn behind him protectively. Picking her up, she cried a little louder, making reaching motions for the body on the ground. Martin petted her hair, light as it was, and cuddled her close, the three of them trying to comfort the baby they'd found. Not every day one finds a child hitchhiking on the back of one of the undead._

_"Shhh...it's okay." Martin whispered to her. "You're safe now."_

_Something caught his eye on her stomach as Martin handed the child to Carolyn, Arthur making funny faces at her which seemed to make her happy, judging by her content babbling. What looked like a slightly hurried yet still neat message was written on her in marker. Martin didn't have any words of his own, simply stunned. The baby's father died getting her here. That was more than a lot of fathers would do._

_Two hours and one extremely proper burial later, the group headed back to their safehouse, the child in tow, the black letters standing out on her pale skin._

_"Hello, my name is Hannah Richardson."_


End file.
